We’re barely into the general election cycle, and Trump’s shtick has grown tediously predictable and boring. He’s almond milk past its due date. He has no variant flavors or notes. He’s already shot his wad. You pick the metaphor.

He’s done.

Yes, there are five months to the election, but the writing is on the wall, Nebuchadnezzar.

Here’s Rick Perlstein at Salon recounting the start of a recent Trump rally: “In Fresno, Donald approached the podium. He led off with a customary boast. (‘What a crowd…I saw on television this morning,…’).”

Does anybody give a shit at this point? We’ve seen this performance. We already know that, with Trump, there’s no there, there.

He started as a pirate, and only a month ago it looked like Mussolini-style politics might win over a majority of Americans in 2016.

But how fast the winds have changed. His galleon is obviously going down–and at the very moment when the Republican rats have been scurrying on, not off, the ship!

Good riddance to Donald Trump and his ship of fools and opportunists. It’s evident it will soon rest at the bottom of dragon seas, brought down by nothing more complicated than sustained scrutiny.

So I’m already calling this election: not Trump. Somebody will be taking the oath of office to serve as President of the United States in January of 2017, but it won’t be Trump.

This doesn’t mean don’t vote, don’t work against his election. That has to be done. But it’s increasingly clear where this is headed.

Trump was well-adapted to the demographic and temperamental environment of the 2016 Republican primary; he is ill-adapted to the demographic and temperamental environment of the 2016 American electorate in general.